Many of the assets that drive Florida’s tourism industry also provide business opportunities and growing markets for expanding companies. More importantly, those same assets provide year-round residents with an exceptional quality of life. The Florida lifestyle means different things to different people, but once you experience it, you’ll know why Florida is one of the most desirable places to live in the U.S.
Moving to Florida:
When David Gillespie wanted to find a corporate headquarters for his biofuels manufacturing company, he didn’t go it alone; he hired a relocation consultant to help. Together, they looked at more than 100 metropolitan areas nationwide and considered various attributes, including cost of living, housing, local talent and incentives. Gillespie also wanted a place where he and his employees would like to live.
“Florida outweighed the others in the scheme of things,” says Gillespie, president and CEO of New Generation Biofuels, which manufactures alternative biofuels from vegetable oils and animal fats.
Three Florida cities made Gillespie’s short list, but it was ultimately Lake Mary (population: 13,200) in Seminole County just north of Orlando that took the prize. Gillespie had visited the community previously on business, and he liked its feel. Apparently, so do a lot of other people. In 2007, Money magazine put Lake Mary in the No. 4 spot on its list of the “Top 100 Best Places to Live” in America.
Since New Generation Biofuels was founded in 2006 as H2Diesel, its employees have worked from sites across the U.S., including a manufacturing plant in Ohio.
“We’re a growing company, and we’ve had people all over the place in sort of a virtual organization,” Gillespie says. “But we’ve reached the scale in our development where it’s urgent to put people in the same place and develop critical mass. We haven’t really had a centralized corporate headquarters.”
So Lake Mary it is. Gillespie himself will relocate to Lake Mary from Houston, Texas, and bring in 25 other employees over the next three years, plus some other important people, too.
Initially, his children weren’t too crazy about leaving friends behind and moving to a whole new state. In the end, Gillespie managed to persuade them with three simple words: Walt Disney World. Gillespie and his children, ages 11 and 9, had already visited the resort 10 times.
“The only reason it’s not World War III at my house,” he says, “is because we’re moving to Florida.”
 From natural wonders to enthusiastic sports fans, Florida has it all. |
Thriving Arts and Culture
In myriad ways, arts and culture are woven into the social fabric of this state, quietly enriching the lives of all who choose to live and work here.
Florida has a long history of making art a priority. In 1973, Miami-Dade was the first Florida county to pass an “Art in Public Places” ordinance, setting aside 1.5% of the cost of new construction to create public art. Other communities quickly followed suit, and today, close to 50 public art programs are in place in large cities and small towns across the state. Since 1979, Florida’s Art in State Buildings Program has placed more than 1,000 works of art for residents and visitors to enjoy on a daily basis. In addition, the Arts in Education (AIE) program makes grants available for activities that promote the arts as an integral part of education and lifelong learning for all Floridians.
 Sarasota’s biennial “Season of Sculpture” exhibition makes large-scale works of art by world-class sculptors accessible to all. [Photos above and below: Gene Pollux] |
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Add to all of this a wealth of visual art — including the renowned collections housed at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, to name a few — and performing arts. Every city of any size in Florida has a performing arts venue and a full calendar of orchestral, dance and dramatic performances. With five theaters and 335,000 square feet, Tampa Bay’s Performing Arts Center is the largest performing arts complex south of The Kennedy Center.
Parks are another thread in Florida’s cultural fabric. The award-winning state park system, covering more than 700,000 acres from Pensacola to Key West, includes beaches, springs, rivers, nature centers, historic sites, battlefields and forts, gardens, museums and lighthouses.
On the local side, Florida has invested more than $250 million over the last decade toward improvements in playground equipment, ball fields, fencing, trails, and landscaping at its community parks all across the state.
Just for Fun
Theme parks:
Florida is home to the nation’s biggest and best family entertainment venues: Walt Disney World, Epcot, Universal Studios Orlando, Sea World and Busch Gardens. Numerous special events, such as wine and culinary programs, educational activities and admission perks, are available only to Florida residents.
Sports:
From collegiate football playoff games like the Orange Bowl to NASCAR races such as the Daytona 500, Florida boasts an exciting and diverse schedule of popular games and competitions. Florida has hosted the Super Bowl 13 times — more than any other state — and is gearing up for its 14th game in February 2009 in Tampa.
Only in Florida
Here are some of the state’s other claims to fame that make Florida one of the most desirable places to live in the U.S.:
- More golf courses than any other state: 1,370-plus
- Home to five of the top six most hospitable cities in the nation, according to Verizon superpages.com: Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Clearwater and St. Petersburg
- World’s largest concentration of art deco architecture in the world: Miami’s art deco district
- World’s largest collection of buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright: Lakeland
- The oldest continually occupied community in North America: St. Augustine, settled by Spanish explorers in 1565
- The No. 1 family-friendly zoo in America, according to Child magazine: Lowry Park Zoo, Tampa
- Third in the nation in wildlife diversity, with more than 1,200 kinds of animals
- The only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles co-exist: Florida Everglades
- Largest breeding population of bald eagles in the lower
- 48 states
- North America’s only living barrier coral reef and the third-longest reef in the world: Florida Keys
- World’s largest collection of Spanish colonial gold and silver: Museum of Florida History, Tallahassee
- The largest collection of original works by Salvador Dali outside of the artist’s native Spain: Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg
Coastal Treasures
 The nation’s No. 1 beach, Caladesi |
No matter how far inland you go, you’re never more than 60 miles from a beach. And the state is home to three of the nation’s top 10 beaches, ranked annually by Stephen “Dr. Beach” Leatherman, director of Florida International University’s Laboratory for Coastal Research. Dr. Beach’s 2008 rankings put Caladesi Island State Park, Clearwater/Dunedin, in the top spot. Siesta Beach, Sarasota, came in at No. 3, and Cape Florida State Park, Key Biscayne, took the No. 9 position.